Over the past couple of weeks, several organizations have released reports on the current state and future outlook for the meetings and events industry, including The Vendry’s Rain and Shine: Events in 2022, American Express Meetings & Events’ 2022 Global Meetings and Events Forecast, and Kaltura’s The State of Virtual Events 2022.
The industry as a whole is optimistic about 2022 after a slower-than-planned 2021, but the pandemic hasn’t completely loosened its grip quite yet. Next year will see the most diverse lineup yet of virtual, hybrid, and in-person events as organizations continue to experiment, iterate, and find the mix that works for them.
Here are some of the biggest findings from the recent reports.
Health and Safety Is Still a Top Priority
Although the pandemic is slowly waning across the country, it has proven to be unpredictable, and organizers and attendees still have concerns when it comes to health and safety that aren’t going away overnight.
62 percent of respondents to The Vendry’s report indicated that health and safety was the top consideration affecting their comfort level planning a live event, and AMEX similarly reported that the top factor for getting back to in-person events, according to 58 percent of respondents, was confidence in duty-of-care components for attendee health and safety.
Safety precautions affect both event logistics and budget —The Vendry also found that health and safety planning was the number one factor contributing to increases in 2022 budgets. In addition, planners have to make sense of ever-changing local and federal guidelines, which will continue into next year.
Mental Health Awareness Is on the Rise
Events is a notoriously stressful field to work in, and this was only exacerbated by the pandemic. However, the circumstances of the past year and half have also prompted more conversations around mental health, both within the events industry and in our larger society.
This is being reflected in eventprofs’ planning for next year and beyond, as 43 percent of respondents to The Vendry’s survey indicated said that they’re prioritizing mental health and wellness in the content and design of their events. This includes things like including more breaks between sessions and featuring speakers that address these topics.
Attendees Still Want Virtual Options
Kaltura’s report included surveys of both organizers and attendees, and on the attendee side, 84 percent of respondents indicated that they would like to always have the option to attend events virtually, and 73 percent were satisfied with their previous experiences at virtual events.
In particular, the most popular session types at virtual events, according to attendees, are expert Q&A’s (47 percent of respondents), demos (38 percent of respondents), and virtual happy hours (33 percent of respondents).
This is an area that seemingly still needs some refining for organizations looking to engage and make the most of what virtual has to offer — according to The Vendry, when it comes to hybrid experiences, the vast majority of events (71 percent) live stream the main event of their conferences, but only 39 percent host remote Q&A’s, and only 36 percent offer remote-friendly networking events.
Sustainability Is a Key Focus
The events industry hasn’t been overly conscious of its carbon footprint in the past, but the growing climate crisis and the high-profile COP26 conference have brought attention to the importance of sustainable initiatives, which many planners are beginning to implement.
83 percent of eventprofs surveyed by AMEX indicated that their organizations are taking sustainability into account when planning events, particularly by reducing paper and applying energy-saving and waste reduction measures. There is still a lot of work to be done, but it’s a promising start.